Kim Jong Un has praised North Korean soldiers fighting alongside the Russian army who killed themselves to evade capture by Ukrainian forces, confirming the extreme tactic for the first time. Pyongyang has sent an estimated 14,000 troops to fight for Russia in Ukraine’s Kursk region and, according to Western, Ukrainian and South Korean officials, they have suffered heavy losses, with as many as 6,000 killed. Intelligence reports and testimonies from defectors have indicated the North Koreans resort to self-detonation when capture is imminent. “Their self-sacrifice expecting no compensation, and the devotion expecting no reward ... This [is] the definition of the height of loyalty of our army,” Kim said at the unveiling of a memorial to soldiers killed in Ukraine.

More from BBC here.

The Gulf has transformed from a bustling economic hub to the front line of a major war. Semafor Gulf is here to help you make sense of it. Editor Mohammed Sergie and his team across Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Riyadh will connect you with what’s happening on the ground. Subscribe for free.

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Senegal

HIV patients in Senegal have stopped visiting clinics and are going without vital drugs after a wave of arrests targeting members of the LGBTQ community, according to health officials and government data seen by Reuters. Senegal, where homosexuality is illegal, last month doubled the maximum prison term for same-sex relations to 10 years. At least 86 people have been arrested in a crackdown that began in early February, local rights groups have said. Senegal is one of only four countries in West and Central Africa where new HIV infections have risen in recent years, according to UNAIDS. "I don't dare leave the house anymore, so I'm literally holed up inside. I double-lock all the doors and windows just to avoid being found," one queer community health worker said.

More from Reuters here.

Colombia

A fierce row is ongoing in Colombia over what to do about a population of 200 hippos, an invasive species there, that are the offspring of animals smuggled into the country in the 1980s by late drug lord Pablo Escobar for his private zoo. The population is believed to have grown from a handful that escaped from Escobar’s sprawling compound. The environment ministry says the hippo population will exceed 500 by 2030 without intervention, and a plan to euthanise 80 of them has been approved. But animal rights activists, and business owners who make money from tourists coming to see the animals, are up in arms. Plans to relocate the hippos to other countries have failed to gain traction.

More from AP here.

Russia has said it wants to see peace and stability in Mali after its forces suffered casualties while battling alongside the government as a rebel group launched attacks across the country over the weekend. Moscow’s Africa Corps, a paramilitary force that grew out ⁠the former Wagner mercenary group, is stationed in Mali to support the military-led government in its war against al-Qaeda- and ISIS-affiliated groups, most notably the powerful Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), largely responsible for the attacks in which Mali’s defense minister was among those killed. The Africa Corps was forced to withdraw from the northern town of Kidal after fierce fighting with JNIM.

More from Arab News here.

NB: Proximities has published a deep dive on the conflict in Mali and the Sahel. You can read it here. There is also a deep dive on the wave of coups in West Africa here.

Iraq

Political newcomer Ali al-Zaidi has been nominated by the Iraqi parliament’s dominant bloc after weeks of wrangling during which other candidates were fiercely opposed by the U.S., with President Donald Trump threatening to stop all support for Baghdad if former two-time Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was chosen. The U.S. administration saw al-Maliki as too close to Iran and, though he remained defiant, the Coordination Framework, a coalition of Shia parties allied with Tehran, went with businessman al-Zaidi as a compromise. He has not previously held political office and, if approved by parliament, will face the challenge of dealing with political and economic fallout from the war on Iran.

More from AP here.

Somalia

A lot has been written about how the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is causing prices at the petrol pump to rise but, as Reuters reports today, it’s causing people in Somalia to go hungry. Famine is looming, according to the government and the U.N., and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is making things worse, especially after assistance was already hit hard by U.S. President Donald Trump’s drastic cuts to Washington’s aid program. More than a third of those facing acute malnutrition are children. "Since the needs are large and we don't have a lot of supplies, we have had to keep reducing the amount ​we give children," nurse Hassan Yahye Kheyre said. "If treatment is on-and-off, the children will become very weak, physically and mentally. And it may not be ⁠possible to reverse it."

More from Reuters here.

NB: Proximities has published a guest post from Somali analyst Abdi Guled on Somalia’s efforts to stop the breakaway region of Somaliland from gaining international recognition as an independent state. You can read it here.

As you’ll have noticed, the subject lines for my weekday emails are just a list of three countries. I like that it’s to the point but some people tell me I should be a bit more clickbaity: “This story about Burkina Faso will BLOW your mind.”

Nah, I think I’ll stick with the current format.

Fairly frequently, though, the places named in the subject lines are not formally recognized as countries by everyone.

Some examples: Somaliland, Taiwan, Palestine, and another that has been frequently covered in Proximities: Western Sahara or the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).

As we highlighted earlier this month, a growing number of countries are now backing a Moroccan plan to give SADR a measure of autonomy.

In the last two days, Britain reaffirmed its support for the proposal during a visit to London by the Moroccan foreign minister, Nasser Bourita. The next day, Bourita was in Vienna, where he won Austria’s backing.

With this strong diplomatic push underway, it seems a good time for a Q&A on one of the world’s longest-running and most under-reported conflicts.

Until next week,

Barry.

So given what you’ve said, Morocco occupies Western Sahara?

Well, that depends on who you talk to. The dispute, like so many in the world, has its roots in colonial times. Morocco annexed much of what was then Spanish Sahara shortly after Spain withdrew in 1975, sparking the African continent’s longest-running territorial dispute. It claimed the entire region as its own in 1979.

But the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which says it represents the Sahrawi people who are indigenous to Western Sahara, fought for independence and declared the formation of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).

Rabat currently controls about 80 percent of the territory, which is separated from the remaining Polisario Front-held areas by a fortified barrier.

Morocco and the countries now backing its limited autonomy plan clearly do not see Rabat as an occupier. But key organizations and international law do.

The African Union admitted SADR as a member in 1982 and considers it a country that needs to be decolonized and the self-determination of its people recognized. The United Nations lists Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory. Under the U.N. Charter those territories are classified as places “whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government.” And the right to self-determination is enshrined by several international laws.

Western Sahara is clearly occupied. It is a colony.

What does the Moroccan plan entail?

Read more

Hope you’re well. Some of you may have already seen, but there is major breaking news out of Mali today so I wanted to drop you a quick note, especially given the situation in Mali and the wider Sahel is so often covered in Proximities.

Rebels are reported to have attacked military bases and installations across the country, includ…

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Good to be back from vacation and thanks for your patience.

Lots to catch up on.

Barry.

Thailand

Forty-four current and former opposition lawmakers in Thailand will go on trial for attempting to amend a law that protects the monarchy from criticism, the Supreme Court said today. The 44 – who include ‌People's ⁠Party leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut and former Move Forward leader Pita Limjaroenrat, who is currently serving a 10-year ban from politics – face a lifetime ban from politics if convicted in what would be a major blow to Thailand’s progressive movement, which is hugely popular with young people and in urban areas. Hundreds of people have been prosecuted in recent ⁠years under the country’s lèse-majesté law, which is among the strictest in the world.

More from Reuters here.

Tanzania

Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan has promised constitutional reform after a commission of investigation found that 518 people were killed in post-election violence last year. The commission’s chairman, Mohamed Chande Othman, said the true figure was likely higher because some families had buried their relatives without taking them to a morgue. The violence erupted on October 29 when crowds of people, mostly young, took to the streets to protest Hassan’s victory in a vote that took place with the country’s main opposition leader in prison and the candidate for the next-biggest party barred from running. The opposition called the commission’s report “an attempt to whitewash the regime’s crimes” and said that thousands of people had been killed.

More from Africa News here.

Vaccines

We highlighted that there would be a big push to roll out vaccines across the world in our “Stories to watch in 2026” deep dive at the start of the year, and the U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO) and vaccine alliance Gavi today published new figures that showed more than 100 million vaccines have been administered to 18.3 million children since 2023. WHO and Gavi launched "The Big Catch-Up" that year, which focused on 36 countries and concluded in March. New vaccines for malaria are expected to be implemented at a larger scale this year, the first new vaccines for tuberculosis in over a century may be imminent, and Brazil is rolling out a world-first single-dose vaccine against dengue.

More from Reuters here.

Just a note to say that I’ve gone on holiday, so Proximities will too.

Normal service will resume on April 23.

Bests,

Barry.

Almost 700 people have been killed in drone attacks in Sudan since January, U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher said today, as the country’s brutal civil war reached the three-year mark. The conflict between Sudan’s military-led government and its former allies in the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group has forced more than 11 million people from their homes, creating the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. It has also killed tens of thousands of people, according to U.N. figures that experts believe to be a significant undercount. Drone attacks have become increasingly common from both sides in recent months and are now a near-daily occurrence. “This grim and chastening anniversary marks another year when the world has failed to meet the test of Sudan,” Fletcher said.

Benin

Benin’s Finance Minister Romuald Wadagni has won a widely expected landslide election victory with 94 percent of votes counted so far, provisional results showed, as his main challenger Paul Hounkpe conceded. Wadagni had been the chosen successor of President Patrice Talon, who was in power for a decade. Analysts say Talon leaves a legacy of strong economic growth and infrastructure development, alongside a failure to quell an Islamist insurgency and a record of cracking down on dissent in one of Africa’s most stable democracies.

More from Africa News here.

Kuwait

Prominent journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, who I can call a friend and former colleague, has been held for six weeks in a Kuwaiti prison over social media posts, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) advocacy group. The 41-year-old, who is an American-born Kuwaiti national, was arrested on March 2, the group said, and has been arbitrarily detained since, with limited access to a lawyer. CPJ, which is calling for Shihab-Eldin’s immediate release, said it understood he was charged with spreading false information, harming national security, and misusing his mobile phone, which it called “vague and overly broad accusations that are routinely used to silence independent journalists." On a personal note, Ahmed is one of the kindest, most sincere, rigorous and passionate journalists I know. Journalism is not a crime.

More from Middle East Eye here.

A couple of things caught my eye this week on the subject of Burkina Faso’s massively popular military leader Ibrahim Traoré.

The first was a Human Rights Watch report that said his forces have killed more civilians than the al-Qaeda- and ISIS-affiliated rebels they are currently locked in war with – a war partly responsible for paving Traoré’s path to power.

The second was an interview he did with Sky News’s excellent Africa Correspondent Yousra Elbagir and other journalists. As part of a media roundtable, Sky and Italian state TV channel Rai became the first Western news organisations to interview Traoré since he came to power in a coup in 2022.

As I’ve written before, I don’t attach automatic importance to the first Western reporting of a story but what’s significant here is that Traoré has taken an avowedly anti-Western stance in his politics, expelling the forces of former colonial power France and becoming widely popular in Africa for it.

He has also expelled French media from the country. So what he might say to Western news organisations was interesting. Yousra asked some tough questions in a wide-ranging discussion with four journalists and reported that several generals who were watching in an adjoining room could be heard jeering her.

And, in a discussion that touched on several issues, there was one quote above all others that caught international media attention.

"People need to forget about the issue of democracy,” the young army captain told the journalists in a lavishly-decorated boardroom. “Democracy is not for us.”

Certainly seems a good time for a Q&A.

Until next week,

Barry.

PS: This is the 30th deep dive published by Proximities. If you become a paid subscriber you get access to the entire archive.

How did Traoré justify what he said about democracy?

In a way, it’s refreshing. Just bear with me.

There has been a wave of coups across West and Central Africa in recent years. And the refrain is pretty familiar. There will be a transition to elections, leaders promise, which will usually be scheduled for a few years later. But this is often just a fig leaf and the reality is that military rule is in for the long haul.

Traoré, perhaps emboldened by his hero status, has stopped pretending that any of that will happen, despite making a pledge to transition to civilian rule by 2024 when he took power. In January, he dissolved all political parties, with Interior Minister Emile Zerbo saying it was necessary to “rebuild the state” and that the parties, of which there were 100 registered and 15 in parliament, had been "promoting division among citizens and weakening the social fabric."

So what I mean by refreshing is that the people of Burkina Faso know exactly what they’re dealing with. Unlike in several other countries, they’re not being gaslit with promises of elections that are constantly kicked down the road.

What they do with that certainty is, of course, another question. As is how they respond to the methods he will use to stay in power, which have already turned oppressive.

You said he was popular. Why is that?

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Israel bombed Gaza on 36 of the 40 days that the world’s eyes were on the war against Iran, according to an Al Jazeera tally. Today marked six months since Israel agreed to an ostensible ceasefire with Hamas, but it has killed at least 738 people and wounded more than 2,000 in that time, rendering the truce all but meaningless. In the 40 days before a ceasefire was reached with Tehran, the Israeli army killed 107 people in the Palestinian enclave. Earlier this week, on the same day it launched 100 strikes on Lebanon in 10 minutes, Israel killed Al Jazeera correspondent Mohamad Wishah in a targeted drone strike.

More from Al Jazeera here.

Western Sahara

Mali has become the latest African country to back a Moroccan plan to give the Western Sahara region, where a war for independence has persisted for 50 years, a measure of autonomy. Under the proposal, a local legislative and ​executive, as well as a judiciary, would be elected by residents, but Rabat ​would have jurisdiction over defence, foreign affairs and religious matters. The Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which has fought the war in order to establish an independent state named the Sahrawi Republic, wants a referendum on independence. Mali joins Kenya and Ghana in recently siding with Morocco.

More from Reuters here.

Djibouti

Voters in Djibouti go to the polls today for an election in which President Omar Guelleh is expected to extend his 27 years in power after age limits were removed, enabling him to run again. Djibouti, a country of less than one million people, has been relatively stable compared to neighbouring countries in the Horn of Africa since gaining independence from France in 1977. Guelleh, 78, was hand-picked to succeed his uncle Hassan Gouled Aptidon, who was the country’s first president. Under his rule, there has been significant investment in port infrastructure, turning Djibouti into a strategically important nation with its perch on the Red Sea. Rights groups have accused the government of suppressing dissent and two of the main opposition parties are boycotting the vote.

More from Africa News here.

Fighting between militias affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIS in Africa’s Sahel region has spilled into Niger, according to a statement from one of the groups, representing an escalation in years of fighting. Conflict between the al-Qaeda-linked Jama'at Nusrat al‑Islam wal‑Muslimin (JNIM) and Islamic State in the Sahel Province (ISSP) erupted in 2019 and more than 2,100 people have been killed in clashes since, according to conflict monitoring group ACLED. The fighting had previously been confined to Mali and Burkina Faso until ISSP fighters last week attacked a JNIM position in the Tillaberi region of western Niger. The governments of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have been at war with the groups for years, with JNIM in particular proving a powerful force.

More from Reuters here.

NB: Proximities has published a deep dive on the war in the Sahel for paid subscribers.

China

Taiwanese opposition leader Cheng Li-wun has arrived in Beijing for a six-day trip at the invitation of President Xi Jinping, as China continues to publicly press for the autonomous island to cede to its control. Cheng, chairwoman of the Kuomintang party, has called the visit, which is the first by a Taiwanese opposition leader for a decade and comes a month before U.S. President Donald Trump attends a summit in the Chinese capital, a “journey for peace.” China views self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out taking it by force, regularly sending warplanes and naval ships into its territory. Xi has pressured Trump on Washington’s long-term support of Taiwan, telling him in a call in February that “Taiwan will never be allowed to separate from China.”

More from AP here.

Gaza

The funeral has been held in Gaza for Mohammed Wishah, an Al Jazeera journalist killed in an Israeli strike on a vehicle he was traveling in, making him the 12th journalist from the network to be killed by Israel since the war on Gaza began. Relatives, friends and colleagues carried his body through the Palestinian enclave, at one point placing it at the spot where he had delivered his live reports. Speaking at the funeral, Ismail al-Thawabta, the director of Gaza’s media office, said: “The assassination of Wishah is a link in a chain of ongoing crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian journalistic family, within the framework of a deliberate and intentional policy of targeting with premeditation and intent.” More than 260 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, almost wiping out a generation of reporters.

More from Al Jazeera here.

An Israeli air raid killed at least 10 people next to a school housing displaced people in Gaza, health officials said. Before the strike, locals had clashed with an Israel-backed militia that was attempting to enter the school to abduct people, medics and residents told Reuters. "The residents tried ​to defend their homes, but the occupation forces targeted them directly," Ahmed al-Maghazi, an eyewitness, told Reuters, refering to the militia attack. Israel has killed at least 700 people in Gaza since agreeing an ostensible ceasefire with Hamas in October.

More from Reuters here.

Sudan

An international medical aid group has said at least 10 people were killed in a drone attack on a hospital in south-central Sudan. Doctors Without Borders said the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group (RSF), which has been at war with Sudan’s military-led government for three years, launched two drone strikes on al-Jabalain Hospital in the White Nile province. The use of drones has become increasingly prevalent in the conflict, which has led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The U.N.’s World Health Organization said last month that more than 200 attacks have targeted medical facilities since the war began.

More from AP here.

Eritrea

At least seven players from Eritrea’s national soccer squad have absconded after a match in Eswatini, according to a BBC report citing a source close to the team. Their teammates flew home from neighbouring South Africa to a reception that had been organized for them. In sporting terms, it represents a significant setback for the team, which had beaten Eswatina 2-1 and earned a spot in the qualifying group stages for the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time in 19 years. Eritrea, which hasn’t held an election since gaining independence from Ethiopia in 1991, is said by rights groups to have one of the most oppressive governments in Africa. Members of the football team have disappeared before returning to the country on several occasions over the last two decades.

More from BBC here.

Almost 100 children have died in a quickly spiraling measles outbreak in Bangladesh, official data showed, as the country of 170 million people launched an emergency vaccination drive aimed at reaching more than one million children. According to health ministry figures, 6,467 children aged six months to five years have suspected measles symptoms. Bangladesh has in recent years made advances in vaccinating infectious diseases, but a measles vaccination campaign in 2024 was delayed by a street uprising that toppled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. As many as 95,000 people die from measles globally every year, the U.N.’s World Health Organisation says, mostly children under the age of five.

More from Al Jazeera here.

Nigeria

The Nigerian army said it has rescued 31 civilians who were kidnapped during an attack on an Easter church service, and that five people were found dead at the scene. The attackers escaped and troops were in pursuit, it said. Northwest Nigeria has struggled with violence for years, with Islamist armed groups battling government forces, and armed gangs storming villages and taking large numbers of people, mostly students, for ransom. Despite several promises and the launch of special military operations, the government has failed to quell the insecurity.

More from Reuters here.

Proximities has published a deep dive on the violence in Nigeria here.

North Korea

South Korea’s spy agency says it has “credible intelligence” that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s teenage daughter has been chosen as his successor. According to lawmakers who attended a closed-door parliamentary meeting, the South’s National Intelligence Service director Lee Jong-seok said footage of her driving a tank was aimed at demonstrating her military prowess and dispelling fears over a female leader. The girl is believed to be named Kim Ju Ae and aged about 13 but North Korean state media has not published that information. Separately, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung today expressed regret to North Korea over ‌a drone incursion, which he said was carried out by a civilian.

More from AP here.

Back in the 2000s and 2010s, while working as a Reuters correspondent in East Africa, I was lucky to count Abdi Guled as a co-worker. Based in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, Abdi reported for us alongside other talented journalists. I thought at the time that Somali journalists were among the best I’d seen anywhere in the world, covering co…

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Four children, aged from two to three years old, have been stabbed to death by a man wielding a machete at a nursery school in the Ugandan capital Kampala. A 39-year-old man, named by police as Okello Christopher Onyum, was arrested at the scene after being apprehended and beaten by angry parents. In a post on X, police said they were questioning Onyum “as investigations continue to establish his motive, background, and any other relevant circumstances surrounding this heinous crime.” The three boys and one girl were killed instantly, police said, adding that the man was in possession of several knives. A police spokesperson, Racheal Kawala, said the man had visited the school earlier in the week to inquire about enrolling a child there and had been told to return today.

More from BBC here.

Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso’s military has killed more than 1,200 civilians since taking power in a coup three years ago, including the ethnic cleansing of members of the Fulani community, a rights group said in a new report. Burkina Faso and neighboring countries have for years been locked in a war with al-Qaeda and ISIS-linked groups, the most powerful of which is Jama’at Nusrat al‑Islam wa al‑Muslimin. The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said all sides had committed atrocities but found that out of 1,837 civilians murdered between January 2023 and ​August 2025, 1,255 were killed by the army and its allies. HRW said President Ibrahim Traore, the country’s hugely popular leader who took power pledging to defeat the armed groups, should be investigated for grave abuses.

More from Al Jazeera here.

Libya

The forces of Libyan military leader Khalifa Haftar, whose administration controls the east of the divided country, appear to have acquired Chinese and Turkish combat drones despite a U.N. arms embargo, according to a Reuters report. Satellite images showed at least three drones at the Al Khadim airbase, which is located in the desert about 100 kilometers from the city of Benghazi. A civil war raged in Libya from 2014 to 2020 as Haftar attempted to topple a U.N.-recognized government in the capital Tripoli. Since a ceasefire was agreed in 2020, the country has been effectively divided between Haftar’s government in the east and the administration of Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah in the west.

More from Reuters here.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have begun a fresh round of talks in China in an effort to end months of fighting, sources from both countries told Reuters. Both sides have suffered heavy losses in the cross-border violence, but Afghanistan has borne the brunt. Islamabad launched air raids on the Afghan capital Kabul last month, killing an estimated 400 people in a strike on a hospital used to treat drug addicts, Afghanistan’s Taliban government said. Pakistani authorities have long accused Afghanistan of harboring armed groups who carry out attacks inside Pakistan, which Kabul denies. Chinese intervention is reported to have eased fighting last month but stopped short of securing a full truce.

More from Reuters here.

Sudan

Sexual violence and rape against women and girls are being used as weapons of war in Sudan, an international medical aid group said in a new report. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) spoke to multiple women who had been subjected to vicious attacks, including gang rapes. MSF said at least 3,396 survivors of sexual violence had sought treatment at its facilities in Sudan between January 2024 and November 2025. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the perpetrators were identified as armed men, and 60 percent of the cases documented in South Darfur involved multiple attackers. MSF Emergency Coordinator Myriam Laroussi said that the numbers confirmed in the report were just the “tip of the iceberg.”

More from AP here.

Gaza

Eleven toddlers, who were evacuated to Egypt from a neonatal care ‌unit in Gaza two years ago as Israeli forces attacked medical facilities, today returned to the Palestinian enclave to be reunited with their parents. As Reuters put it, the children have “never known their parents, and they've ​never known Gaza.” They were among 29 preterm babies who were evacuated from the neonatal intensive care unit at Gaza's ​Al Shifa hospital in November 2023 when it was raided by Israeli forces. Their parents were not allowed to accompany them. "I couldn't touch her, I couldn't hold my daughter during the two and a half years," one of the children's ​mothers, Sundus Al-Kurd, said as she held her daughter Bissan. "Today is like a birthday, like a ​new beginning, and I will make up for everything my daughter was deprived of, God willing."

More from Reuters here.

At least 70 people were killed and 30 wounded in a massacre in Haiti, a rights group said, significantly higher than the figure of 16 cited by authorities. Gang members stormed communities near Petite-Riviere in the Artibonite region, killing people and setting homes on fire. Artibonite, an important agricultural area, has seen some of the worst violence as criminal gangs and armed groups seek to take territory. Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince is now estimated to be 90 percent controlled by gangs despite the deployment of thousands of Kenyan police alongside government forces. More than 1.4 million people, about 12 percent of the population, have been forced from their homes by the conflict, which has caused an economic crisis and pushed people into hunger.

More from DW here.

Lebanon

Israel will destroy every house in Lebanese villages near its border and 600,000 people who have fled southern Lebanon will not be allowed to return, the defense minister said, adding that Gaza would provide the model. Israel Katz reiterated Israel’s plan to occupy Lebanon to establish what it calls “a buffer zone” between the two nations. More than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 1.2 ​million people displaced since Israel launched renewed attacks against Hezbollah on March 2, building on the almost daily bombings of southern Lebanon it has carried out for more than a year despite an ostensible ceasefire.

More from Reuters here.

Mongolia

Mongolia has chosen its third prime minister in nine months after prolonged bouts of infighting in the ruling party and a deadlock in the legislature. Uchral Nyam-Osor was voted in by parliamentarians to the second most senior position in the country’s semi-presidential system with 88 out of 107 votes. The 39-year-old former minister of digital development and communications, who was also a well-known hip-hop artist, has positioned himself as a reformist leader who will cut red tape. He is now faced with the immediate challenge of getting parliament working again and placating the country’s youth, who have been taking to the streets to protest corruption, high prices and a host of other issues.

More from the Independent here.

Gunmen have killed more than 70 people in South Sudan in a dispute over a gold mine, according to police. Videos shared on social platforms showed dozens of bodies scattered around the area. The site at Jebel Iraq in Central Equatoria State has previously been the scene of violence between illegal miners in a country where the industry is largely unregulated. The opposition SPLM/A-IO blamed government forces, known as the SSPDF, for the attack, while an army spokesman refused to comment to AP. South Sudan, which was formed in 2011 after splitting from Sudan, has in recent months teetered on the brink of all-out civil war, with the forces of President Salva Kiir facing off with fighters loyal to SPLM/A-IO leader Riek Machar, who was once Kiir’s vice president.

More from AP here.

Gaza

With the world focused on the Iran war and Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon, Israeli attacks are continuing on Gaza and the West Bank. At least four people were killed in Gaza today, health officials said, and two were killed in the occupied West Bank. In one of the incidents, a 22-year-old man was shot dead by soldiers near the city of Hebron. Officials said troops then took his body away. Palestinian security sources told Reuters the dead man ​was named Ramzi Awawada and accused ​Israeli soldiers of preventing medics from reaching him as he bled to death. Israeli attacks have killed more than 700 Palestinians in Gaza since an ostensible ceasefire was agreed with Hamas five months ago.

More from Reuters here.

Taiwan

Taiwanese opposition leader Cheng Li-wun is to visit China in April at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, a month before U.S. President Donald Trump attends a summit in Beijing. Cheng became leader of the Kuomintang party (KMT) in October and has pledged closer ties with China, which sees Taiwan as part of its territory. Cheng should tell Xi that Taiwan “is a sovereign, independent country,” Hsu Kuo-yung, secretary-general of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, told reporters in the capital Taipei. "I also ask her to make one thing especially clear: In Taiwan, we elect our own president,” Hsu said. “And she should also ask Xi Jinping: When is China going to elect its president?"

More from DW here.

Since returning to power in 2021, it has cracked down on the media, on its political opponents, on ethnic minorities and, most notably, on women.

The list of restrictions on women and girls is exhausting in its length and horrifying in its extremity. They have been banned from both secondary and higher education, which, according to the U.N., has so far prevented more than two million girls from attending school beyond primary level.

The impact has been devastating for women, and self-defeating for the Taliban.

The U.N. children’s agency says that keeping girls from secondary education is costing Afghanistan 2.5 percent of its GDP a year, and bans on women working for NGOs and the U.N. have hurt the country’s ability to respond to shocks.

According to U.N. Women, early childbearing is projected to rise by 45 percent this year, and maternal mortality could increase by more than 50 percent.

Women now require male chaperones to travel long distances, are not allowed to work most jobs, and can’t even go to parks, beauty salons, or gyms.

Though they bravely resist, they have been all but erased from public life.

Now, there’s a new challenge: their children are starving.

“We have a catastrophic nutritional crisis on our hands with two-thirds of the country in a very serious or crisis level for acute malnutrition,” John Aylieff, Afghanistan Country Director for the U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP), told the Independent last month.

“This is the highest surge in malnutrition ever recorded in the country. And the lives of four million children are hanging in the balance.”

More than 17 million people are classified as acutely short of food, ‌including 4.7 ⁠million facing emergency levels of hunger, which is one step above famine.

The thing is, though, this didn’t need to happen, it didn’t have to be this bad, and the Taliban do not shoulder all of the responsibility. Western leaders do, too.

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Children will go hungry in Somalia due to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran disrupting aid supplies and driving fuel costs higher, according to the U.N. children’s agency. UNICEF says it has $15.7 million worth of aid, including food and vaccines, in transit or ready for delivery to Somalia but that its arrival is now uncertain. Speaking to AP at a refugee camp in the south of the country, UNICEF’s executive director Catherine Russell said the Iran war has been “a shock to the system” for aid to Somalia, where nearly 6.5 million people face severe hunger. Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. said today that his government would “facilitate and expedite” the passage of humanitarian aid and agricultural supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, which it has closed to commercial traffic.

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Syria

More than 1,700 people were killed, the overwhelming majority from the Druze religious minority, during a week of violence in Syria in July 2025, a new U.N. report said, urging the country’s government to investigate senior security officials. Fighting erupted in the southern governorate of Suweida, initially between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes, before government-aligned forces joined on the side of the Bedouins. Extrajudicial executions followed and more than 200,000 people fled their homes in the biggest challenge President Ahmed al-Sharaa had faced since coming to power promising to unite Syria’s factions after almost 14 years of civil war. The foreign ministry said in a statement that it was treating the report “with the utmost seriousness” and was committed to “holding all those involved in these violations accountable without exception.”

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Iran

Iran’s men’s football team wore black armbands and held tiny schoolbags ahead of a match in Turkey, in what an official said was a protest over the killing of 165 girls in a strike on a school on the first day of the Iran war. The bombing, widely believed to have been carried out by the U.S., prompted revulsion in Iran and devastated the small town of Minab. The players lined up ahead of their friendly game with Nigeria clutching pink and purple bags with ribbons tied to them. “The players are holding the school bags close to their heart in remembrance of the 165 girls the Americans killed in an Iranian school,” a spokesperson said. U.S. military investigators believe their forces were responsible but have dragged their heels on completing a probe into the attack, prompting the U.N. to urge them today to bring it to a conclusion and publish the results as soon as possible.

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U.N. experts have called on Israel to free Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, the former director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, warning that his life is at risk and that he has been subjected to “severe torture.” Abu Safia, 51, was detained by Israeli forces in December 2024 after he refused to leave the hospital, which was the last functioning health facility in the north of the enclave, when it was under Israeli attack. He has since been held without charge or trial and is reported to be in poor condition. “He has been systematically denied critical medical examination and treatment, and deprived of essential care to such an extent that his life, health, and well-being have been gravely endangered,” U.N. special rapporteurs Tlaleng Mofokeng and Ben Saul said in a statement.

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Hong Kong

The owner and staff of a Hong Kong bookstore have been arrested for selling seditious materials, including the biography of jailed pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai. Independent bookstore owner Pong Yat-ming and three workers at his shop, Book Punch, were detained by national security police after a search, according to local media reports. “The Troublemaker,” which recounts the life story of Lai, was confiscated. Lai, a 78-year-old former media tycoon and British citizen, was jailed for 20 years last month under a controversial national security law on charges of colluding with foreign forces. The arrests prompted fresh concerns that freedom of expression has been all but extinguished in the city.

More from AP here.

Ghana

The U.N. General Assembly has declared the enslavement of Africans during the transatlantic slave trade “the gravest crime against humanity” and called for reparations to be paid despite strong opposition from the United States. A resolution, tabled by Ghana, was passed to applause by a vote of 123 in favor, three against and 52 abstentions. Only the U.S., Israel and Argentina voted against it, while Britain and EU states abstained. Countries such as the UK, the U.S. and European nations have long rejected calls for reparations, arguing today’s governments and institutions cannot be held responsible for past wrongs. Some 12 to 15 million people were captured in African countries between 1500 and 1800 and taken to the Americas. About two million died on the journey.

More from Africa News here.